But even then, he was in for one final surprise.
Just before he left the kitchen courtyard, that same serving girl intercepted him. She was not so much a girl, he noticed now; it was just that she didn’t have that worn-out look that serf women and slaves got; he thought she might have been close to the age of his own mother.
“Here,” she said, pressing a package wrapped in a broad leaf of the kind fish were baked in into his hand. “Take this with you. Little boys get hungry in the night, and you look three-quarters starved, anyway. We Altans have to stick together.”
So she was another Altan serf! He tried to give it back to her, alarmed at the thought that he might be getting her into trouble. “I don’t—” he began. “You’ll get—”
But she laughed and closed both his hands around it. “Ah, nothing of the sort!” she said cheerfully. “Even if we didn’t have so much food here that we give what’s left to the beggars after every meal, you are a dragon boy, and Kashet’s boy at that; I’d be in trouble if I didn’t make certain you had plenty to eat, not for sending you off with something extra!” She turned him around and gave him a little shove. “Off with you; I’ve work to do.”
So, clutching a packet that held more food in it than he got out of Khefti in three days—and that was by weight alone, no telling what was actually in the packet—he made his way back to Kashet’s pen. When he thought about all the times he’d been unable to sleep because his belly was aching with hunger, or when he’d managed to get to sleep, only to have hunger pangs wake him in the middle of the night—well, he could hardly believe his luck.
Torches placed at intervals along the walls and at each intersection showed him the pictures on the walls clearly. He did get lost going back, but eventually he righted himself, and followed the pictures to the pens. The torches burned brightly, with the faint scent of incense to them, and not a great deal of smoke. The yellow light they gave off was clear and strong; the walls here were high enough that the kamiseen didn’t blow them out, only made them waver and flicker now and again, as a gust or two got past the wind baffles. His eyes were light dazzled so that when he looked up, he couldn’t make out the stars, though, which was what had led to his getting a little lost, for he couldn’t tell east from west in this maze without seeing the sun or stars. Or the moon, but it was rising late tonight, and wouldn’t even begin to peek up above the walls until after he found Kashet’s pen. He could hear the sounds of the other boys chattering together somewhere. And for a moment, he felt a strange emptiness inside of him that no amount of bread could touch.
But then he turned the corner into Kashet’s pen. He stood in the soft darkness for a moment, and let his eyes adjust to the dimmer light, for there were no torches in here. When he was able to make out details, he saw the pallet waiting for him beneath the awning that protected the saddle and harness. At that moment, all he could think of was sleep.
Tia was a desert land, and the desert was as cold by night as it was hot by day. Now the hot sands where Kashet rested were a source of comfort, a radiating warmth better than the wall Vetch used to sleep beside, for this warmth wouldn’t fade before the night was half over. Vetch was happy enough to spread out on his pallet and settle down beside the lightly snoring dragon. The dragon was fast asleep in his wallow, and it didn’t look as if Vetch could have awakened him if he’d tried. With no torches in here, once Vetch’s eyes had gotten used to the darkness, he looked past the awning over his head to the stars.
In the darkness of his old sleeping place in Khefti’s back kitchen, Vetch had spent many an unhappy night on his pile of reeds, shivering in his rags. This pallet was, he thought, made of a thick mattress of straw inside a covering of fleece, all of that covered with heavy linen. There were two blankets as well, and an Altan pillow rather than a Tian headrest. It felt strange to stretch out and not have scratchy straw sticking into him, or feel the stone through the straw. It felt as if he was stretched out on a cloud.
He carefully put his food packet near at hand, but inside an upturned bucket that he vermin-proofed with a brick to hold it down. Then he laid himself down on his pallet, warm, full, and trying to figure out what he had done to warrant this sudden change in his fortunes. He looked up at the stars for a clue, but the stars weren’t in the mood to answer, it seemed.
From somewhere in the distance came the sounds of a celebration in progress, and the occasional note of a flute or throbbing of a drum. He wondered what was being celebrated.
Not another Tian victory—
But no one had said anything about it, so perhaps it was something else. Maybe it was nothing more than a party. When you were as rich as these people were, you could have little feasts and celebrations all the time, for no particular reason.
He felt odd. He wanted to hate the Tians, even the ones here. After all, weren’t they taking the place of dozens, even hundreds, of warriors? Weren’t they the reason why the conflict was going so badly for the Altans?
Oh, he wanted to hate them! But that meant hating Jouster Ari, who had saved him from Khefti, and Haraket, who had been decent to him.
But the stars were very bright, and very distant, and though he tried to open his mind and heart to the gods for guidance, he heard nothing counseling revenge. He pulled the blanket up to his chin, and wriggled his toes, sleepily. The pallet beneath him was soft and wonderful, so superior to a pile of reeds that there was no comparison.
He yawned. Yes, he would hate the Tians. All of them.
Tomorrow. . . .
He closed his eyes, and drifted into sleep, with Kashet snoring in his ears. And for once, he did not dream.
FIVE
HARAKET came to rouse him in the morning, as Nofet, the Goddess of Night, was just pulling in her skirts to make way for Re-Haket, the Sun God. He woke at the first sound of a footfall and all at once; it had been Khefti’s habit to wake him with a kick to the ribs, if he were not already scrambling to his feet when his fat master lumbered into the kitchen courtyard. For all that Khefti was lazy, he still rose with the first light, in order to get the most possible work out of his serf and few servants and apprentices in the course of the day. So Vetch slept lightly, and the soft sound of Haraket’s step woke him completely.
He was not confused as to his whereabouts, though; he knew perfectly well where he was the moment he opened his eyes, and as he unwound himself from his blanket and set his gaze on Haraket’s unlovely face, his heart lifted. There would be no beatings today, no empty belly, no burdens too heavy, or work too much for his strength. He was a dragon boy, now, and had the sort of life he could not have dreamed of having even this time yesterday. He felt his lips stretching involuntarily, and for a moment, did not understand what his face was doing. He was startled, an instant later, when he saw a slow, slight smile on Haraket’s face, to realize that he was smiling, and Haraket was smiling back.
How long had it been since he had last smiled? He couldn’t remember . . . feeling extremely odd, he covered his confusion by bending to fold up his blankets and roll up the pallet.
The barge of the sun god was not yet above the horizon, but the beams of his light were streaking the sky. The air was cold enough to make Vetch shiver, the kamiseen already whining around the tops of the buildings. Soon enough, though, Lord Re-Haket would begin to hammer his power down upon the land, and upon anyone not fortunate enough to be able to remain in shade or indoors.
Re-Haket was not the chief god of the Tians, as he was for the Altans, perhaps because although he gave life to this land, he also brought death in the dry season. Tians’ greatest deity was Hamun, the ram-headed Lord of Storms and the Stars, said by them to be the father of all the gods. Among the Altans, Hamun was nothing more than the god of the shepherds.
“Up with the sun lord, are you?” Haraket said, with a lift of one corner of his mouth. “Well, good. Today, I want you to try and make your way through your duties without me. You ought to be able to; for one thing, you can follow the others around
if you need to find things. For another, the corridors are clearly marked.”
Vetch nodded, though his stomach fluttered a little with nervousness. He did not really want to follow the others about. He had the feeling that they would make things hard for him if he tried. Maybe they wouldn’t be allowed to hurt him, but they could do other things to make his life difficult. “Yes, sir,” he replied, and hesitated. There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask, a hundred reassurances he wanted to beg for.
Haraket read all that in his face, and shrugged. “Somebody will put you right if you ask. You’ll have to learn quickly, but you aren’t stupid, boy. You can manage.”
Vetch didn’t much like the sound of that, but it wasn’t as if he had any choice in the matter.
Well, actually, he did. He could make a mess of his duties, and be sent back to Khefti.
But he was just one serf, after all, a single unimportant serf. How could he expect an Overseer to devote any amount of time to herding him about in his duties? Haraket had already spent an incredible amount of time on him yesterday, and that was probably only because he was making sure he would not have to send Vetch away. If he was to succeed, he would have to be better, smarter, and more diligent than the freeborn boys here.
Haraket’s face took on an expression Vetch didn’t recognize. “Look, boy, I can’t lead you around as if you were a Palace brat needing a nursemaid. If I do, it’ll only make things difficult for you with the other boys; they’ll think I’m playing favorites, and then there’ll be hell to pay. You’re in a bad place, and so am I, and you’ll just have to jump into the river and hope Lord Haras’ amulet protects you from crocodiles.”
Vetch swallowed, but this, he understood. Haraket was right.
“Now, listen, you know what to do in the afternoon—so these are your morning duties. The very first thing you do every morning is to feed Kashet. That is of first importance; Kashet will have gone all night without eating, and you should know by now how much a dragon has to eat; he’ll be starving as soon as he’s thoroughly awake.”
They both looked over their shoulders at that; Kashet was barely stirring, and raised his head to blink sleepily at them. Obviously, he was not thoroughly awake yet.
“Once you’ve done that, then saddle and harness him,” Haraket continued. “Jouster Ari will be here as soon as he thinks Kashet will be ready; he’s the first in the air, you can count on him for that. Once Ari and Kashet are away, then you can get your breakfast, and follow the other boys and do what they do.”
“Yes, sir,” he repeated, and Haraket strode off on some duty of his own. Kashet had put his head back down and had gone back to sleep, torpid despite the rising sun.
So it looked as if he had some breathing space before Kashet started looking for his food.
Vetch gave himself a good stretch, shook out and rewrapped his kilt, then went to fetch Kashet’s breakfast of meat. But this time he found himself showing up at the butchers along with many other dragon boys. Haraket was already there, and while Vetch was waiting his turn for a barrow, he kept one eye on the Overseer.
Haraket watched each boy fill his barrow with a critical eye; twice he stopped a boy from leaving without truly filling his barrow, and once he stopped a boy who was trying to stagger off with too much. He scooped half of the meat into another boy’s barrow, with the admonition, “Dump that in front of her and come back for a second trip. If you hurt yourself trying to carry too much, you’ll get no sympathy from me.”
Vetch had to line up for the butchers once he got his barrow, but once he had it, and loaded it up with as much as he could carry safely, Haraket waved him past a station where the other boys were scooping powder atop the meat and mixing it in.
“That’s the tala,” the Overseer warned. “Remember, not even a touch of tala for Kashet. Ari would have my hide, and I’d have yours.”
Well, Vetch didn’t doubt that one bit.
Haraket left him in the next moment, to go and scold yet another boy for loading his barrow too lightly. Vetch could still hear him roaring at the other lad as he pushed his barrow away down the corridor. “How dare you short your dragon because you’re too lazy to carry him a full meal! How dare you over-season with tala to make up for it! You young bastard, are you trying to kill your Jouster? Don’t you know what will happen? If his dragon—”
The sense of the words was lost as Vetch pushed his barrow around another corner, but he wondered what would happen to an underfed, overdrugged dragon. Would it be so weakened that it couldn’t fly properly? Would it just not have enough energy to fly a combat? Would too much tala make it drunk, or stupid? Or if it got really hungry, would it turn on its Jouster? Wild dragons could and did eat humans. . . .
He shuddered a little, and hurried on. The east was getting brighter, with long streaks of light shining up across the blue sky, the hands of the God reaching out to touch the land. He found himself humming the morning hymn to Re-Haket for the first time in so very long . . . perhaps for as long as it had been since the last time he remembered smiling. He was smiling now as he whispered the words of the hymn to himself. How beautiful art Thou, bringer of life, shining-winged one . . . how beautiful with morning’s banners, streaming forth in glory.
Kashet was restive and a little waspish after the long night without food, but in the other pens, Vetch heard hisses and whines, the snapping of jaws, and the curses of the dragon boys. He knew then that he was very lucky to have Kashet as his dragon. All Kashet did was to play his favorite trick for snatching meat from the barrow, snaking his head around the corner again once he spotted Vetch coming from his vantage point over the wall. Vetch been more than half expecting it, so this time he didn’t jump. In fact—the dragon gave him such an amusing sidelong glance as he grabbed his treat that Vetch had to laugh.
So that was three things he hadn’t done . . . forever. He had smiled, sung, and laughed, all in the same morning, before breakfast. He felt a little dizzy with amazement. Yesterday, he had nothing to look forward to but misery. Today—
How beautiful art Thou, radiant with banners!
Kashet ate faster than he had at the two previous meals, probably because he was so hungry. He tossed the meat chunks down his throat as fast as he could without choking, and the barrow was already half empty.
Watching how much Kashet was eating, Vetch made a decision; he dumped what was left in the barrow on the ledge beside the sand wallow, and went back for another half a load. Haraket was still there, and gave him a surprised look and a raised eyebrow when he saw Vetch again. “Kashet’s really hungry,” Vetch said diffidently to the Overseer. “I thought—should I bring him extra?”
“Not just before a flight—but feed him extra when he comes back in, as much as he’ll take,” Haraket decreed, with a thoughtful nod. Then he muttered, as if to himself, “Huh. He may be putting on a growth spurt; they never actually stop growing, after all.”
Vetch waited; he had the feeling that Haraket was making up his mind about something.
“Hmm,” Haraket mused, then did make up his mind. “Wait a moment, boy—Notan!”
The Overseer waved at one of the butchers. “Bring me a basket of hearts for this boy!”
The butcher nodded, and brought over what had been requested, dumping the organs into Vetch’s barrow.
“Now, you go give those to Kashet,” Haraket ordered. “If he’s really putting on a growth spurt—that’s not impossible, even though he’s mature—even though he’s going to be flying shortly, we need to do something about it. So whenever he starts eating like a pig, but he’s going to be going straight out, you ask for a basket of hearts. That’s dense meat; it’ll give him strength without weighing him down. Now, off with you—and Vetch?”
Vetch was already halfway to the door, but he turned obediently at that. “Sir?” he asked.
Haraket was actually smiling, broadly. It quite transformed his face. “Good lad. You’re thinking. Keep it up. Ask me first, before you do anything w
ith Kashet, but keep thinking.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, feeling a flush of pride warming his cheeks and ears. He all but ran back to the pen, pushing the much-lighter barrow before him.
Kashet dove on the hearts as if he hadn’t just eaten a full barrow-load of meat. Clearly, they were a great treat for the dragon. Vetch had to laugh, though, at the playful way he would pick one out of the barrow, toss it into the air, and catch it before it hit the ground; Kashet seemed to enjoy the sound of his laughter, too, for he curved his neck and regarded his dragon boy with a sparkling eye that seemed, at least to Vetch, to have a great deal of good-natured humor in it.
Kashet ate every scrap of meat that Vetch had brought, but the last few hearts he ate daintily, taking time to enjoy them. Vetch saddled the now-sated dragon, and the Jouster arrived just as he finished tightening the last of the straps. Kashet cooperated beautifully, dropping and rising on Vetch’s commands as if he had been doing so for years. Once again, Vetch could overhear what was going on in the nearer pens, and it seemed that the other dragons were finally being less obstinate, but only just. Presumably the tala made them more obedient. But the other dragon boys had to shout their orders over and over before the dragons obeyed, so Vetch was quite finished long before they got their dragons all buckled and cinched down.
Ari didn’t say anything, but he did give Vetch an abstracted nod when he arrived; after a brief and approving inspection of the harness, Ari patted Vetch on the back in an absentminded way and climbed into his saddle, and a moment later, he and Kashet were hardly more than a little dot in the sky.
By now, the sun was well up and it was beginning to get warm; not all the heat was coming from the sand in Kashet’s wallow. The kamiseen whined around the tops of the walls, bringing with it the scent of the desert, and overhead, a vulture circled. And Vetch was beginning to get hungry, despite the packet of bread and meat and honey cake he’d been given last night.
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